A Novel Bare-Handed Manipulation Technique for Distant Objects in Virtual Reality Misc

Abstract:

Advancements in bare-hand tracking technology, featured in many modern virtual reality (VR) headsets, have enabled intuitive hand interaction for proximate 3D object manipulation. However, manipulating distant 3D objects in VR with bare hands remains a challenge, and our work explores the potential of two-handed interaction in this context. Previous work highlighted the ease of using the non-dominant wrist as an interactive surface for interaction, by pointing at it with the dominant hand's index finger. Our research expands this paradigm by extending the interactive zone to the entire non-dominant hand so that the user can interact with their index finger on the non-dominant hand’s fingers and palm to adeptly and precisely manipulate a distant 3D object's position and rotation. Through a user study, we compared our Two-Hand Fingertip-Palm technique (THFP) with a bare-hand variant of HOMER (BHOMER) on efficiency, accuracy, and usability. The results demonstrate a notable accuracy improvement (at least 75% better), especially in complex tasks, such as hanging a painting on a slanted wall, albeit at the expense of efficiency (about 47% slower) compared to BHOMER. While BHOMER is faster, it also exhibits more variation in time, and at the average BHOMER end time, our new technique is still substantially more accurate than BHOMER. Further, our method received a more favorable rating on the System Usability Scale (SUS), underscoring our approach's user-centric and intuitive design. Further, the NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) indicates that THFP not only improves the task completion rate and user satisfaction but also reduces the cognitive, physical, and temporal demand for users. In addition, we discuss insights into the integration of constraints, error prevention, and the facilitation of consistent interaction. Our findings lay a solid foundation for using our new method in the quickly advancing VR field.